An Invitation To Shangri-La The dynamic musical duo of Andy Platts and Shawn Lee return as Young Gun Silver Fox with the revamped album Ticket To Shangri-La Deluxe Edition Plus Announces US Tour Dates! “An Expertly crafted genre exercise” – Uncut “Young Gun Silver Fox turn out a deceptively effortless, ravishingly upbeat sound that similarly transports you, blending together palm- fringed freewards mellow yearning and complex relationships” – MOJO “ If you’re a fan of the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates and Ned Doheny, you’ll want to dip your toes with them in summery sounds like Sierra Nights and West Side Jet” – Daily Express Andy Platts and Shawn Lee need no introduction, having each clocked up a life time of musical brownie points, whether through Andy’s career as a world renowned composer and singer/songwriter/guitarist with British soul sensations Mamas Gun or through Shawn’s esteemed work as a producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer which has placed him at the forefront of the global soul and funk community. Ticket To Shangri La Deluxe Edition showcases a band at the very top of their game. They have fine-tuned their potent brew of sun-kissed pop-soul, West Coast AOR and natural groove with a skill for composition and production. On the new album, Young Gun Silver Fox forges ahead down a musical highway blessed with blue skies and positive vibrations. With the new edition, Young Gun Silver Fox added two disco-styled remixes for "Rolling Back" and "Tip of the Flame." Both songs were released as 12" singles and now available on all streaming platforms! For both participants, the chance to make a record together is always a liberating experience, as Andy explains; “I always come back to Young Gun Silver Fox like taking a drive to the coast and I just smell the ocean and the air and it’s like ‘wicked I’m back here again’ and I can just kick back and enjoy it.” When it came to the creative process for the record the duo added something new to the mix. “We have a sound and a language that we’ve cultivated that sounds like Young Gun Silver Fox, and these things are great but they can be a double-edged sword because you think ‘well nobody wants to make the same thing over and over’, so you need to find ways to move forward and do something you haven’t done before. I was thinking we have a lot of mid-tempo stuff, so I started thinking if we had some bangers and some more up-tempo stuff that would be great and would add to the canon, and so I concentrated on delivering a few things like that.” This self-imposed mandate to up the groove factor is evident in the album’s first half and exemplified in the uplifting four to the floor and sky-high chorus in ‘West Side Jet’, which came about in Shawn’s London studio. “Lyrically I knew I didn’t want to do anything romantic,” expands Andy, “it can’t be about the dancefloor it can’t be ‘I love you, break my heart’ etc. it needed to be something different. The only musical I really like is West Side Story and I’d watched the original again recently so it’d come back into my consciousness just how brilliant the music and writing was, so it was just a bit of a nod to my fondness of that as a piece of culture.” It’s swiftly followed by the FM funk brilliance of ‘Tip Of The Flame’, with Shawn’s nailed on groove and Andy’s soaring vocal turn guaranteed to invoke moods of joy, not least in its writers. “That track was just winning,” enthuses Shawn, “it just had a groove so I knew that was gonna be great when Andy got on it. The vocals are so good on it, he’s just singing his ass off on a whole ‘nutha level.” “I was trying to fuse Tears For Fears or Prefab Sprout with an ’80s soul thing which was an interesting experiment” explains Andy when discussing ‘Rolling Back’, which takes no prisoners with its chorus-to-die-for and highlights his masterful understanding of an uplifting melody, fusing it to a deep groove that you can imagine lighting up the airwaves of a fictional long lost pacific coast radio station. “I wrote and tracked it from the ground up and then Shawn replaced the drums on it as he’s a master drummer. Shawn embellishes and adds his sugar which always elevates it to another level and that’s where Shawn’s magic and deserved role as producer of the records we make is earned, because he really knows how to make a record.” Set amongst endless high points is ‘Sierra Nights,' a stunningly evocative, kaleidoscopic sunset of a tune whose lyrical genesis came from Andy’s lockdown reading matter. “It’s one of the most favorite things I’ve done. Musically I was just trying to reach into that West Coast acoustic sound, but one of the things that sent me there was one of my lockdown reads which was Don Quixote, and it’s all there in the lyrics which are about Don Quixote and Sancho. I was just really trying to paint a picture of their friendship and their struggle set amongst this vast wilderness and each one having each other’s back. I did kind of think of me and Shawn in there as well, it’s just the two of us against the world really.” “When he sent me that track I was almost dumbfounded,” adds Shawn. “It was so instantly evocative and atmospheric that it pulled me into a world. It felt so different from anything we’d done before but I thought it was something really, really special." Accompanying the release of the deluxe edition is the music video for 'Sierra Nights' watch here: https://youtu.be/ZfvTTFJd8mE?si=vivbghm3PNQhM51E. The music video was shot on the band's cell phones as they cruised through California's High Sierra Desert landscapes; it was edited by the talented Paul Elliott. Guaranteed to generate some rays of winter sun, the chemistry and craftmanship on Ticket To Shangri La Deluxe Edition means that Young Gun Silver Fox does exactly as the title suggests; transporting the listener to a magical, mythical world of sunshine and good vibes. With over 20 million streams to date, the album has received critical praise around the world from tastemakers at KCRW, BBC Radio 6, to Uncut and the esteemed MOJO magazines. And soon they will be circulating within the pop-culture ethos with newly announced sync placements at Paramount Pictures and Apple TV. They are currently working on a new album slated for the end of the year 2024, and recently wrote and produced a focus single for UK mega band TAKE THAT (Ivor Novello/MTV/Brit award-winning)! Lastly, the esteemed duo is taking the new music plus beloved fan favorites on the road this Winter! With having sold over 20K tickets during their European tour and a successful debut in the States, the band is proud to return Stateside and announce their second USA headlining tour. The tour will be kicking off in January at the famous Troubadour in West Hollywood! For more information on dates and tickets please visit: https://www.younggunsilverfox.com/. Ticket To Shangri La Deluxe Edition -Tracklist 1/ Still Got It Goin’ On 2/ West Side Jet 3/ Tip Of The Flame 4/ Rolling Back 5/ Simple Imagination 6/ Sierra Nights 7/ Lodestar 8/ Winners 9/ Starting Wars 10/ Freak Flag 11/ Rolling Back DISCO Remix 12/ Tip of the Flame DISCO Remix Tour Dates: TUESDAY 23 JANUARY, Troubadour, West Hollywood, CA WEDNESDAY 24 JANUARY, Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach, CA THURSDAY 25 JANUARY, The Independent, San Francisco, CA SATURDAY 27 JANUARY, Bluebird Theater, Denver, CO SUNDAY 28 JANUARY, Aggie Theatre, Fort Collins, CO TUESDAY 30 JANUARY, Fine Line, Minneapolis, MN WEDNESDAY 31 JANUARY, Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL THURSDAY 1 FEBRUARY, The Magic Bag, Ferndale, MI SATURDAY 3 FEBRUARY, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY SUNDAY 4 FEBRUARY, Sonia, Cambridge, MA MONDAY 5 FEBRUARY, The Atlantis, Washington, DC WEDNESDAY 7 FEBRUARY, Center Stage Theater, Atlanta, GA |
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